Patterning and Processing of Thermosensitive Hydrogels for Microfluidics Applications

Hydrogels have been an active area of research for a variety of applications due to their ability to retain large volumes of water within their polymer gel networks. Stimuli-responsive hydrogels provide the added advantage of the ability to control the water retention by means of external stimuli. For example, N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) is a thermosensitive hydrogel that exhibits a Lower Critical Saturation Temperature (LCST) around 32°C, above which the gel becomes hydrophobic and expels the water molecules, resulting in a drastic swelling/shrinking ratio. The goal of this project is to utilize this pseudo-binary transition in the fields of microfluidics and drug delivery.